Systematic Reviews (sometimes called evidence syntheses) are a form of literature review that follows a standards-based protocol in order to reduce bias and produce reliable, reproducible, and accurate conclusions. UC San Diego Library's Systematic Review Service is a program to support researchers by providing:
A systematic review or evidence synthesis requires a significant investment of time. The Library’s Systematic Review & Evidence Synthesis Service aims to help get you started and to offer guidance for staying on track. UC San Diego Librarians are available to assist you with your project with instruction, consultation on parts of the review, or partnership as a co-author on the project. Our service is not limited to health science topics and is available for all disciplines at UC San Diego.
Increasingly, students are conducting systematized review projects as part of their coursework, and we can offer educational support for these projects as well. Please check below for the types of service we can offer.
If you would like to contact us about getting started with your systematic review, please fill out our online form.
We offer guidance to those interested in learning how to conduct a systematic review or evidence synthesis for a course specific assignment. We will provide an introductory overview of the evidence synthesis process, share guidelines to help direct the project, and discuss tools to assist with the different steps of the process.
We can:
Provide an overview of the process including development of a protocol, screening of the results, qualitative review of articles, and data extraction,
Advise on searching for existing systematic reviews on a topic to prevent duplication of work,
Help refine and clarify the research question (using established frameworks) and assist in designing a search strategy – with tips and best practices for a comprehensive search,
Discuss relevant databases to search for literature on the topic,
Provide instruction, if needed, for working with databases beyond PubMed.
Additionally, members of our team are available for workshops for classes or departments on systematic reviews or evidence synthesis. Content may be customized to the group’s needs.
We offer guidance to those interested in learning more about how to conduct literature reviews. We will provide an introduction to the steps of the systematic review (or other systematized reviews within the family of systematic reviews) process.
We can:
Provide an overview on the full process from screening, to full-text review, to data extraction & qualitative review,
Provide guidance on developing a protocol and options for where to post it as well as templates for protocols,
Advise on searching for existing systematic reviews on a topic to prevent duplication of work,
Design a search strategy for PubMed
Discuss additional relevant databases and grey literature resources,
Discuss systematic review tools (e.g. search term building, bibliographic management software, manage the review process,or ones that assist with data analysis and/or extraction),
Provide instruction, if needed, for working with other relevant databases.
We offer more extensive assistance for the project, if desired, in reviewing researcher suggested terms, generating additional search terms including both keyword terms and controlled vocabulary for all of the databases and grey literature resources to be searched. This level of assistance is usually credited with an acknowledgement of the librarian’s work in the final publication. Please check with the librarian at time of manuscript submission how best to credit them.
In addition to the services mentioned in the introductory consult, the librarian can provide additional assistance such as:
Work with the project team to identify controlled vocabulary terms and assist in generating keyword terms for all desired databases (which may require several meetings,
Discuss systematic review guidelines (Cochrane, IOM, JBI, etc.) to follow for the project,
Advise on the use of various PRISMA resources (e.g., Protocol, Checklist for reporting systematic or scoping reviews, Flow Diagram)
Discuss options and techniques for searching grey literature
Support peer review of the search strategy with a PRESS Review consultation
link to What is a PRESS Review … – “Peer Review of Electronic Search Strategies” is a process, suggested by both Cochrane and the National Academies, and is a step to do before the project finalizes the search strategies – our service can review the search strings already created by your team using the PRESS Review (PDF) form
Please note: search term analysis not available post hoc to a completed project.
Librarian(s) collaborate as a partner on the research project. They serve on the study team to help design the search strategy, execute searches in appropriate databases, review the grey literature, and help compile a PRISMA flow diagram of the study selection process. The librarians contribute to the Methods section and Supplementary Resources by writing and describing the search processes conducted for the review. Co-authorship is required at this level of collaboration following ICJME recommendations.
At this level of support, the librarian is a member of your research team and works to:
Assist with search protocol development (PROSPERO, Open Science Framework, etc.,)
Develop, translate, and execute the search strategy in relevant databases and grey literature resources,
Manage data related to the literature search and results
Populate Covidence with search results
Provide guidance on using Covidence
Create search alerts for new results during the progression of the project, or re-running the search prior to manuscript submission
Assist with obtaining the full-text of articles
Contribute to the manuscript – specifically the methods section, by writing portions of the methodology related to the search and sources used, including creating the PRISMA flow diagram, and providing search strategy documentation for the Supplementary Materials section.
